


Amends

by lalaietha



Series: Ten Thousand Things [10]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-06
Updated: 2011-04-06
Packaged: 2017-10-17 16:39:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/178853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/lalaietha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some things have to be made up for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Matter of an Ostrich Horse

There were things Song expected to find at her door. One of the runners from the physicians, telling her to come quickly. Someone who was hurt who decided to bypass the physicians and come straight to her. A friend, a relative, that annoying Rani from across the village, who didn’t seem to understand that “I would rather marry a cow-hippo” meant “no, really, I don’t like you.” One of the village kids playing a prank, even.

A royal courier was not on this list. A royal courier who bowed to her was definitely not on this list. A royal courier who bowed to her and had . . . .three, yes, three unsaddled ostrich-horses (in addition to his own, saddled and dusty) was certainly not on this list.

It was, however, who was outside her door.

Song blinked at him, mouth a little open. From inside the house she heard her mother call, “Who is it?” and didn’t answer at once.

“You are Song, the nurse?” the courier asked, politely. Song closed her mouth and swallowed.

“Yes?” she said. “I mean, yes, I am.”

“I have a message for you,” he said, and handed her what was, in fact, a fairly heavy box. There was a scroll tied to the top of it. It was scroll of very, very fine paper, and it was tied on with silk string, and tied closed itself with a red silk ribbon, sealed with red wax that glittered with gold flakes.

The seal was the Fire Lord’s. You couldn’t live around here and not know what that looked like. Song gaped at it.

“These are also yours,” the courier said, gesturing to the ostrich-horses. “If you have a reply, it can be left at the mayor’s house and will be taken by the next courier through; I’m sorry, Mistress Song, but I must depart immediately.”

Her mother had gotten up to come look at what was going on, and arrived at the door in time to see the courier bow again, mount his ostrich-horse, and disappear.

“What on earth . . . .?” her mother asked, looking from box to scroll to tethered ostrich-horses. Song shook her head.

“I don’t know,” she replied. She thought to go inside to read the scroll, but then it occurred to her that the ostrich-horses would still be there; so she looked a bit helplessly at her mother and sat down on the porch instead, crossing her legs instead of tucking them politely under her. Her mother followed suit, slower and with more care for older joints.

Song put the box down, because it was heavy. Then she carefully undid the string and picked up the scroll, carefully pried the seal up, trying to break it as little as she could, and finally undid the silk ribbon.

The note was short, and she read it aloud. It said:

 

 _Mistress Song,_

 _I can’t imagine you’ve forgotten me, nor can I imagine that memory is fond. For the first, I don’t think there are that many old men who make tea out of white jade bushes and drink it, and for the second, I can only imagine the difficulty that my theft must have caused you, and the betrayal you must have felt at the abuse of your kind hospitality. For this, I most humbly apologize._

 _While I cannot turn back time and undo the months of difficulty, I ask that you accept this repayment and allow me to make amends as best I now can._

 _In the box is the cost of one good ostrich-horse at market. I apologize for the weight, but I was assured that many coins of smaller denomination would be more useful than few of greater. In addition, my factor will have purchased three new ones for you, and all the feed necessary for their lifetimes is prepaid with one of your local merchants. They are yours to do with as you like, to sell or to keep or to give away._

 _Obviously, though you knew me as a traveller and a refugee named Li, that is not who I am. And although I hope that this will stand as amends for my theft, I would also like you to know that kindness can only be repaid with kindness, and if you find yourself in need, a message by courier can put you in touch with my nearest factor._

 _Finally, if you are ever in Ba Sing Se, call on the Jade Dragon. My uncle has decided to stay there with a tea-shop, and would be happy to welcome and house the people who knew him as Mushi, and an incautious tea-drinker._

 

At the bottom was the stamped seal of the Fire Lord. The new one.

Song stared at it. She passed it to her mother. Her mother read it over, and stared at it, and passed it back to Song. Then her mother opened up the box, lifting the clever latch, and revealed that it really was absolutely full of copper and silver.

Not to mention, to Song’s eye, the box itself had to be worth kind of a lot.

Her mother closed the box, and turned to Song. “We had the Fire Lord,” she said. “And the Dragon of the West here.”

“Yes,” Song said. She didn’t quite believe it herself. It didn’t seem real. That the Dragon of the West would be so silly as to make White Jade into a tea, or that the Fire Lord - yes, probably banished Fire Prince at the time, but still! - had stolen their ostrich-horse.

“In our house,” her mother went on.

“Yes,” Song repeated.

They were both silent for a moment, reflecting on that. Then Song’s mother said, “The Dragon of the West complimented my roast duck.”

Song wasn’t really listening anymore, though. Now she was looking at the box of coins, and then at the three ostrich-horses, and her mind was tallying up what three good ostrich-horses would bring, by way of price.

Then she looked back at the note, and the invitation of the last lines. And a giddy, mad little thought started at the back of her mind. It didn’t belong to the real world, as a thought. In fact, it belonged to the world where a king stole your ostrich-horse and then paid you back for it a year later, with four times the price as interest.

This was enough, Song thought, to move to Ba Sing Se. And enough left over, maybe, to learn from one of the great physicians there, the ones who taught at the university.

She hugged the scroll to her chest, and turned the thought over and over in her mind, like a gem.


	2. The Matter of Sons

This was the way of things: they brought back news if there had been a definite death. That was how Sela knew that Gansu wasn’t coming home. A messenger brought back his last pay (a pittance) and the pendant he wore of hers, that she’d insisted he take. For a death, for a death that happened on the field, you got to know for certain.

If someone just went missing, nobody bothered to look. Captives, deserters (though she knew Sensu would never desert): they just disappeared and you never heard. You never knew. You never got the answer.

It was easier to think of him as dead. She never told Lee that, but the truth remained: her husband was dead. Her son was dead. It was just her and Lee.

So when Sensu came up the road, she thought she was asleep.

He had left on his own two feet. He came back on an ostrich-horse. He was dressed as a soldier, still. He was grinning and laughing, his war-hammer at his saddle. He looked . . . well. Healthy. Strong.

And the war was over, but it still gave her stomach a turn, just for a moment, to see that he was riding beside a man of his own age in Fire Nation colours, though he was on an ostrich-horse, too, with baggage strapped to its back.

She thought she was dreaming. Or maybe she, too, was dead, and he was waiting for her spirit to come, and Gansu would be there -

Lee looked up from where he was feeding the pig-chickens. Sela saw him. Saw his eyes open wide, and his mouth open to shout. Almost scream, really. To call out, Sensu, and then to start running flat out, as fast as he could.

Sela watched Sensu and the Fire Nation man stop, and Sensu slide off the ostrich-horse to catch his little brother up when Lee flung himself. The ostrich-horses both shied, but the Fire Nation man caught up Sensu’s ostrich-horse’s reins and reined in his own, walking it in a circle, grinning all the while.

Sela heard Sensu call, “Bring him in for me?” and then watched her first son swing her second up onto his shoulders and walk towards her.

“Hello, Mother,” he said, when he got close enough, and Sela raised her hands to her mouth before she burst into tears.

 

*****

The Fire Nation man stood back out of the way while Sensu caught Sela up as well, hugging her tight, but no tighter than she clung to him back. He had gotten down off his horse, but the man waited very politely, while Lee danced between mother and brother, and Sela tried to convince herself this was real, that Sensu was real, that this was possible.

When at last she had some of her composure back, she pressed Sensu into one last hug and stepped back. “Who’s your friend?” she asked. And her tongue only tripped over the last word a little.

Lee seemed to notice the other man for the first time, and stepped close to Sela, if - brave boy - between her and the visitor.

“Mother, this is Lieutenant Taro. He, um, basically he was assigned to make sure I made it home.” Sensu sort of waved his hand in the man’s direction, grinning.

“My pleasure,” said the man - Taro - waving it off. He bowed to Sela. “The Fire Lord asked for a volunteer, and I’d never got much of a chance to see anything but my backwater fishing village and the ocean, so.”

Sela stared. “Yeah,” said Sensu, “apparently the Fire Lord stayed with you guys for a while? or something? He wasn’t really clear, but it’s not like I was going to ask. He just said to say hello to Lee, and that he hoped Gow never came back and caused trouble, afterwards.” He shrugged, in a kind of good natured bewilderedness.

Sela kept staring. Lee’s mouth was hanging open, a little bit. The Fire Nation lieutenant added, “He also asked me to give Sensu’s brother this, which I guess means you, hey buddy?” And the lieutenant took a long, narrow box off the back of his ostrich-horse and then crouched down a little, so he wasn’t towering over Sela’s second son. “Here you go, kid. Be careful with these, you could put someone’s eye out.”

“Or take their leg off,” Sensu said, his arm around Sela’s shoulders, shaking his head. “I’m still not clear on why the Fire Lord is sending my little brother double-swords.”

Lee took the box and gaped. The lieutenant chuckled.

“Well somewhere along the line he got a _little_ less preemptive and inexplicable than he was when we were sailing his ships around,” the man said, standing back up, “but trying to figure out why Fire Lord Zuko does the things he does is still a losing game. It’s usually better just to do’em.” He dusted off his knees, and then bowed to Sela again. “Ma’am,” he said, “Master Lee, it was nice to meet you, and I’m glad you’re home, Sensu, but I should go see if I can find a room before nightfall.”

“No,” Sela said, almost at once, looking up from her bewildered looking son and his box, and thinking of a man - a boy, really, younger than Sensu - and how fragile he’d looked thrown to the ground by the spike of rock. Until he came back up, angry and wielding fire. “No, please,” she said, a little less sharply. “Come in and eat with us. We have room for you to stay the night.”


End file.
